In recent years, the historically minor expenses attributable to utilization of the mails have significantly increased as a result of both direct and indirect mailing costs. As these expenses continue to spiral upwardly, the mailing habits of major industries are coming under closer scrutiny with a view to controlling such expenses. In this connection, many major manufacturers of postage meters and systems, including the assignee of the present invention, have recently introduced lines of meter-scale systems, which basically include a highly sensitive scale coupled to a postage meter which automatically prints the proper postage for franking the mailpieces weighed on the scale.
Other successful means have been devised for reducing indirect mailing costs. For example, the assignee of the present invention recently introduced a system for remotely resetting postage meters to eliminate the labor costs which would otherwise be incurred for hand-carrying postage meters to the local Post Office for resetting purposes.
With the above thoughts in mind, it should be appreciated that there is a need in the marketplace to provide suitable means for making a record of direct mailing costs on a current basis for cost analysis and other mail control purposes. In a typical office or corporate mailing room, a number of users have access to a single mailing machine and the postage meter associated therewith. In these situations, it is often desirable to account for the postage used by each person or department within the office. An automated system for providing this function is described in co-pending U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 108,061, filed Dec. 28, 1979, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
In the apparatus of the above identified application, an encoder is shown for use with a postage meter. The encoder has a lever which is movable among a plurality of postage value selecting positions. The encoder includes framework adapted for removably mounting the encoder in operating relationship with respect to the postage meter, and includes means for monitoring movement of the postage meter lever when the encoder is mounted in the operating relationship. The monitoring means includes means for providing an electrical signal which varies in response to movement of the postage meter lever from one of the positions to another of the positions.
The encoder includes transducer assemblies which include a conventional variable linear potentiometer with a stationary linear resistance. As a postage meter lever is moved from one position to another, the resistance of the potentiometer varies, thus varying the value of the electrical signal.
Since the postage meter levers may be moved to any one of ten discrete positions, zero through nine, the value of the potentiometer associated with each lever is read as a step function. Consequently, calibration of the encoder is important to ensure that values near the boundary of each step are not incorrectly interpreted. For example, without the proper calibration, a setting of the number five which is near the upper boundary of step five, may be interpreted as the number six. There is therefore a need for an accurate and simple meter reading device calibrator to ensure proper operation of the accounting system.